World Cup overpass project collapses in Brazil

An overpass collapsed in the Brazilian World Cup host city of Belo Horizonte on Thursday, killing at least one person and injuring 10 more, an emergency official said.

Oli Scarff / Staff | Getty Images News

File Photo - Fans of the Brazilian football team buy food on the street from a mobile catering van after watching Brazil play Cameroon on June 23, 2014 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Television images showed part of a passenger bus crushed under the overpass and news website G1 said another two trucks and a vehicle were also smashed.

The accident site is around 3 km (2 miles) from the Mineirao stadium, where a World Cup semi-final match will be held next Tuesday. That match is a semifinal between the winners of Friday's Brazil vs. Colombia and France vs. Germany matches.

Soccer's governing body, FIFA, did not return calls or emails about whether Tuesday's semi-final match in Belo Horizonte might be moved to another site.

A fire department official told GloboNews that at least one person was killed and 10 injured. A spokeswoman for the Belo Horizonte fire department told Reuters there were reports of several injuries, although she would not confirm the death.

The overpass was one of the many infrastructure projects aimed at improving the city's ailing public transport network. The bridge was to be used as for passenger buses in a system known as BRT/Move, considered a legacy project from the World Cup.

Heavy government spending on the World Cup and long delays in finishing promised infrastructure projects have spurred violent street protests in Brazil over the past year, although they have died down in recent weeks.

In November 2013, a huge crane that was being used for construction on the World Cup stadium in Sao Paulo fell, killing two construction workers and causing damage to the still unfinished stadium. And just five days before the opening match, a monorail in Sao Paulo that was being built to alleviate World Cup traffic collapsed, killing one person and injuring several others.

Weak enforcement of construction regulations in Brazil and the speed at which projects were completed to meet the World Cup deadline caused many to fear infrastructures such as Thursday's collapse.

—By Reuters, with reporting contributed by CNBC's Jason Gewirtz

Correction: The World Cup matches Brazil vs. Colombia and France vs. Germany are slated for Friday. The day was incorrect in an earlier version of this article.